Maryland’s Elk Neck State Point and Turkey Point Lighthouse
Shortly before I left Pennsylvania, I took a day trip to Elk Neck State Park in Maryland to meet some fellow campers. It’s on a long peninsula, across Chesapeake Bay from Havre De Grace, home of the world’s largest duck decoy museum. The campground at Elk Neck State Park is heavily wooded, the sites a tad rustic.
The beach a short drive from the Elk Neck State Park campground.
At the end of the peninsula is the historic Turkey Point Light, built in 1833. Although only a 35-foot tower, the 100-foot height of the bluffs on which the lighthouse stands makes it the third highest lighthouse off the water in the bay. But, wait! There’s more…
Like a good snowbird, tomorrow I’m heading to Florida for the winter. Pennsylvania’s turned cold (but I think that started a few months ago).
I’ve been ready to leave for a new place for a while. I’m really looking forward to meeting up with about a dozen friends and framily (friends who are like family), several who live there, and several as they come through the panhandle. With one exception, these are all folks I’ve met on my travels. You’ve got to love that!
But I’m nervous about this trip, more so than usual, and I don’t know why. It will take me about four or five days to get there, maybe six.
I’d love it if you all would send me good, safe travel vibes! However you do it: prayer, metaphysically, sending the love, just good thoughts – it’s all good, and I appreciate it.
To RV or Not To RV, that is the question.
You all know I wrote a book, right?
Yeah, you know because you probably saw one of the dozen or so other postings about it.
Thank you to those of you who already purchased a copy! You all rock!
And because my readers rock, I’m offering a 50% discount for you all. The e-guide is only $9.95 to begin with, so you’ll get it for less than $5 with the discount.
How do you get the discount? Subscribe to this blogs posts (enter your name and email in the pop-up window, if you haven’t already) OR comment below and I will add you (you can always unsubscribe later, not that you would want to :).
*Once you do that, I’ll send you the code. Sign up for this blog via the pop-up or by commenting below no later that midnight eastern time, Tuesday 10/4/16 in order to receive the discount.
(After a long day on the road, I’ve realized it’ll take more time for me to email the code to each commenter and new subscriber so I’m just going to post it here for the next few days. Knock yourselves out ,feel free to share the code with friends and stuff. It expires 10/4.)
Hi, remember me? I’m that gal who used to blog here. Yeah, yeah, so I’m flaky when feeling overwhelmed. But I make up for it with my vivacious personality. Heh.
Another leap of faith was in my near future, and this time I was afraid to jump. Yes, I gave up my stick-and-brick (read “apartment in-between the city and the suburbs”) – before getting my RV – and that leap of faith felt more comfortable than this one. I was super excited about it, but I was also nervous about temporarily relocating to the panhandle from the start – something about it never felt right. My friends and fellow workcampers knew all the details and none of them thought it was a good idea, either. But I really wanted this to work – it would mean I could travel all the time!
It was for that commission-only sales job for which I’d get to travel all the time. This is the same job I already tried it out in two neighboring towns… the one that didn’t sell (100% commission = no pay if there are no sales), but I got to meet some of the rudest people in Texas. Oh joy.
This time the owner was willing to pay for me to go up there and provide $200/wk as a base for the first two weeks. After my last experience of working for a week and a half without making one sale, I decided it was too risky to try it again that far away from civilization. I already burned up resources when I tried it the first time and couldn’t risk it happening again.
The funny thing is I was all set to go, but was nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs But, wait! There’s more…
Looking out the small window of the 737 as it flew into San Jose Airport I saw one thing: Sameness.
Miles and miles of sameness. It was as if someone took a house-shaped cookie cutter and laid out millions of identical little houses on cookie sheets made of grass, bordered by roads of concrete and asphalt. Hundreds of thousands of cars zoomed in between the green blocks of sameness.
Looking out that window, I felt surprise. Surprise I’d lived in the middle of all that sameness for so many years and never realized how “same” it looked from above. The “30-thousand-foot view”, to use an already overused term, is one of sameness. I was a small part of that sameness for so many years and never ever comprehended it; it all appears somewhat unique from street level.
The familiarity of the sameness was warm and comforting, like a favorite soft blanket. The traffic, not so much. The traffic was more like an itchy wool blanket with moth holes. The convenience of having all manner of stores and restaurants within a few miles of my location at any given time felt luxurious. But that convenience is a double-edged sword: When you don’t have to go far to get anything you need, you rarely, if ever, venture out of the sameness. All you ever experience is sameness.
I’m at the Sioux Falls airport checking in for my return flight to Austin (via snowy Denver).
At the security check point I put all my stuff on the conveyer belt and turn around to go through the metal detector. But there is no metal detector. In its place is something I’ve never seen…
It’s a big, cylindrical glass container, with the outline of a pair of foot prints on the small carpet at the bottom. It’s one of those new-fangled x-ray screening machines.
Oh. Hell. NO.
I stop dead in my tracks a few feet from the entrance and ask “What IS that?!” just as realization begins to dawn on me. Now I begin to back up, hands in the air, as the TSA agent calmly tries to explain how benign the monster device is.
I don’t hear a word she says other than “You don’t need to back up.”
The hell I don’t.
I’m looking again at the footprints on the small carpet inside the big, glass screening machine. I wonder to myself if those are what was left of the last guy’s ashes when the “screening” was over.
Perhaps not so oddly, the movie Soylent Green suddenly pops into my head.
Me, shaking my head: “Uh-uh. I know what that thing is. Can’t I just get wanded or something?”
By now you’re all aware of The Great RV Roll-about.
Maybe more so than you’d like.
Hey, it could be worse – this could be another post about my cat.
For those of you living vicariously through my experiences, I thought you’d like a few t-shirts and bumper stickers from places you haven’t yet been.
If you have a shirt that says “I stood on the corner in Winslow, Arizona” or a bumper sticker that says “I’ve been to Purgatory and back… Purgatory Correctional Facility, Utah” people will think you’ve been there.
And that you’re cool. Naturally.
No need to tell them you haven’t been.
Or, if you have been there, now you can get the shirt you forgot to buy.
Monterey County is one of my favorite places in California. Santa Barbara being the other. But when it comes to the coastal views, Monterey County wins hands down.
Big Sur, Carmel, and Monterey have some of the most beautiful coastline in the country.
Point Lobos State Park, near Carmel
Highway One on the way to Big Sur
Seals at Old Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey
Enough of the pretty stuff. Here’s the weird, wacky, and wonderful around the area… But, wait! There’s more…
This post is a mish-mash of the highlights from the beginning of my new year, much of which seems like an episode of the Twilight Zone.
I’m not able to post as frequently as I’d like since I’m on the road in remote locations. My internet is spotty and electrical hookups aren’t always available. That’s what boondocking is like. And you all know how I feel about the boondocking.
Ladies and Gentlemen, next stop The Twilight Zone…
Caution: Reality Ahead (but it only *looks* like reality)
A house guest, I have one.
For a few weeks. Holy Shatner! I can’t believe it, either. This one seems to be a very good one. One who cleans up, and helps around the rig with BBQs and hooking up the new toad. We are heading toward Arizona for a couple weeks before my house guest returns to their home state. [The name of said house guest is withheld to protect their reputation (notice I didn’t say ‘to protect the innocent’) because associating with me might, well, you know, not be good for someone’s reputation. Besides, we’re still trying to decide who is the Gypsy and who is the Tramp.] But, wait! There’s more…
Arizona is probably the coolest state when it comes to unique and odd attractions. I used to think I’d have to go to Egypt or Mexico to see a pyramid, but no. Arizona has a pyramid in Quartzsite.
In 1856 the US Army decided it would be a good idea to bring camels over from the Middle East.
Our government 150 years ago? Not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer, so how well do you think this worked?
To their way of thinking, the camels would better make the hot, dry trip across the desert than the horses. Ok, that almost makes sense…
But when they imported the 70 animals, they neglected to consider camels are not horses and are not trained like horses.
In case you don’t know, camels are not sweet like horses.
And the US government is still none-too-bright 150 years later, but you know that.
However, in a rare moment of lucidity, they decided to bring over from the Middle East several experienced camel drivers. One of those drivers was named Hadji Ali.
Since most Americans couldn’t pronounce the name, they just called him ‘Hi Jolly’ – the phonetic spelling of the pronunciation.
Everyone told me “There’s a naked man in Quartzsite, Arizona. You’ve got to go there.”
Well, duh! Of course I do.
My friends, and folks I meet on my travels, give me some of the best tips. I love you people!
They were right, as usual: he was naked except for a hat, a necklace, and a small crocheted “sock” over his privates. (‘small’ is not a comment on the size of anything other than the sock)
I think there is a little satin bow on it, but I couldn’t look that closely without being accused of staring.
No, NO. On the sock.
Sheesh, I really have conditioned you all to go to the dark side first, haven’t I? You’re welcome.
